Dickinson: Which Face Matches Yours?

The future greatest poet in America, currently a rebellious daughter who scribbles poems at midnight and takes carriage rides with Death himself. Her body lives in the 19th century and her soul in the 21st.

A stern patriarch who runs for Congress while his household rebels in secret. He believes in propriety and tradition, and in his daughter not being published. History sides with the other camp.

The eldest son who built the house next door and married Emily's best friend, the worst possible arrangement for everyone involved. Little by little he realizes he's the loneliest man on the grounds.

The youngest daughter, collecting cats and suitors in roughly equal numbers. She starts as comic relief and grows into the most unexpectedly modern woman of her time.

The orphaned best friend who married into the house next door. She's also the true love of the poet next door. Every poem that begins "To Sue" says what the era couldn't.

The town's best seamstress, who was running her own business decades before that was easy. Her hands are capable and her mind is sharp, and the war tore her family apart.

The Dickinsons' hired man who secretly prints an abolitionist newspaper in the barn. Every night he risks everything for words the country isn't ready to read.

A mother fighting an invisible war against dust, imperfect dinner parties, and daughters who won't marry. Her housekeeping standards could run a small country.

A gentle law clerk who read Emily's poems and just said "these are good." He's the first person who ever said so. Some muses stay forever because they couldn't stay.